The Four Fates

Author: Heliosphoros
Type: Humanoid planeswalker (see description and appearence for details)
Gender: Ostensibly female
Availiability/Access: Open

Description

The Four Fates are, as the name implies, four distinct planeswalkers, that are very closely associated with each other. They are usually seen together: though they have complete mobility on individual planes, they appearently cannot planeswalk without the others, being connected by invisible, metaphysical links.

Appearence

All of the Four Fates are female humanoids. It's unclear if they belong to the same species or not: on the one hand, they're very physically diverse, each resembling a different humanoid species, on the other all possess at least one physical characteristic in common, namely the absence of body hair in favour of vegetation.

Yolanda is the youngest of the group, a child in appearence. Her hair is composed of long, soft grass blades, that alternate between a verdant green and a golden yellow, the latter making her look blonde. Her eyes shift constantly from warm brown to inoccent blue. A pair of large palm fronds emerge from her back, acting as wings. Her skin is pale, and she has freckles on her face. She usually dresses in flowing garments, usually dazzling in the colours of the rainbow. She is the only of the Four Fates to not possess an iconic item, though she occasionally produces a pair of knitting needles made of golden light.

Ketis looks as if she was in her late twenties or thirties. With her green, almost-frog like colouration, webbed fingers and facial fringes she vaguely resembles a merfolk. Her hair is composed of kelp, and she has blue markings and tattoos in her skin as well as black lips and irises. She doesn't care much for clothes, usually defaulting to a tunic that doesn't constrict her movements. She carries about a spindle.

Awrna appears to be the physically oldest; she is very much a classical hag in appearence, being hunched, having grey, warted skin, a long croocked nose and a generally old, tired face. Her irises are of a piercing metallic gold, surrounded by a blackening in the sclerae (though the sclerae as a whole are still white), and her hands end in curved talons. Ferns form her "hair", either verdant and tall or decayed and draping over depending on her mood. She wears a white and black cloak that obscures most of her features. She carries a pair of rusty black scizzors.

Flying-Sever looks like a young woman, probably in her late teens. Aside from some elven features, such as pointed ears, she looks mostly human in appearence. Her hair is composed of oak leaves, her skin is dark and her eyes are of a bloody-red colour, igniting into fiery flames when she's full of joy and sadistic glee. She wears mostly clothes made from leathers and other tough materials, favouring thick jeans. Her item is a rod.


History

Where the Four Fates came from or how they came into being is a mystery. It is speculated that the Fates deliberately surpress information about their origins, and have so far been successful.

What is known is that they were first encountered shortly after the Mending, manifesting in Shandalar, where they stayed for a decade, stationed on the Eloren Wilds. Through this time they procured a series of artifacts left from the Wizards' War, a quest that lead them to hire another planeswalker to track these relics. In exchange for his services Yolanda granted him the Caladrian Aegis. The Four Fates eventually planeswalked away, months before the Sliver incidents began.

Since then, the Four Fates have remained largely inconspicuous. They operate mostly from Pyrulea, but have countless "coven sites" across the Multiverse. After the War of the Wheel they began making excursions to Arbagoth; initially these were cursory inspections, before they eventually set three major operation sites in Oakumbra, Vhron and Tymocia.

Motivations

The Four Fates see themselves as arbiters and enforcers of the natural order, helping other beings find their true destiny and purpose. They also believe that the universe at large is hopelessly corrupted, citing events like the Mending as evidence that the natural order has been violated to an unforgivable extent. As planeswalkers, it is only their duty to help less aware creatures and to restore and maintain balance whenever these are threatened.

Currently, they're working on a larger agenda, trying to find a way to increase their influence.

Powers

Connected by invisible strings of magic, the Four Fates are magically connected, their mana reserves shared and mutually enchanced. This allows them to quickly gather up mana resources, and to continuously pump mana to each other. Combined with a wealth of boosting spells, this makes the Four Fates some of the most endurant planeswalkers alive, and starving them of resources is not an option.

Their most infamous shared ability is their destiny weaving, a magical ability that is capable of influencing an individual's entire life. The process is as follows:

- Yolanda generates magical threads. Each thread represents an individual's path's infinite possibilities;

- Ketis and Flying-Sever weave with the spindle and the rod. Each discuss and determine which events will take place and how they will take place. Most important is the organisation of the sequence of events and their span of time.

- Arwna cuts, determining when the individual dies, and when traumatic tragedies take place. She has no control about the sequence of events.

The Four Fates can weave only one person's life at a time, as the threads Yolanda generates at a given time can only represent one individual. However, they can certainly influence other lives indirectly. The exact precision depends on how much detail Ketis and Flying-Sever put in: the vaguer an event, the wider the range of things that will happen.

Each life they weave represented by a craft, ranging from a rope to beautiful tapestries. Each of these tokens is zealously guarded, as destroying them will break the enchantment and destroy the Four Fates' control. Once destroyed, the Four Fates cannot weave that person's destiny [directly] again.

On their own, the Four Fates are still very powerful mages. All of them have access to vegetation and vital magic:

- Ketis is a master of biomancy, dealing with the living tissues in all forms, from regeneration and healing to mutating the flesh to whatever she sees fit, even being able to create and spread cancer. She is capable of altering the inner essences of the living organism, and at times has been allowed to create new races and species for the Four Fates' designs. She's also talented in a specialised and frightening form of mind magic, being able to alter the victim's personality in accordance to her twisted interpretation of the natural order. She is capable of doing this selectively, allowing the victim to be aware of these changes. Lastly, she has a repertoire of water and aether spells.

- Awrna's magic is primarily aeromantic, having mastery over the air and wind in all its forms. She can create vicious winds and powerful storms, destroying anything in her path, being able to also focus air into lethal cuts, tearing through flesh and metal alike. She also has a mastery of "breath magic", where she can both asphyxiate and heal, extending into giving a "second wind" to recently dead corpses, reviving them. She can create and manipulate gases, usually used to kill or make her creatures produce noxious lethal substances. Finally she can thicken and dim the air, casting darkness.

- Flying-Sever is talented in geomantic magic, being able to shape the earth to her whims, cause powerful earthquakes and landslides and melt rocks and boulders into lava, something that she has particularly come to favour. She's also talented in luck and chaos magic, and that is in fact an important component in the Four Fates' weaving spell. Finally, she's an accomplished emotion manipulator.

- Yolanda is a very unassuming person, and very little of her power has been seen. She regularly shapes light into constructs for her own amusement, but she so far hasn't been reccorded using it in combat. She's also capable of a form of mind magic, instantly pacifying resistance, at least long enough for the other Fates to deal with the problem. Most importantly, she is the one to create the threads, and combined with the fact that the mystical connections of the Fates are centered on her, it can be assumed that she's far more powerful than what she appears to be.

Should be "in flowing garments", unless she clothes clothes.


Should be "each".

--------

Stating that Ketis is able to "alter the genetic code" puts me a little on edge without knowing where she gets that information, because while we've known about how natural selection works for over a century, understanding of genomics is a very new science, and bringing it in is sure to raise some alarms with others reading this. The angle of being able to make creatures wholesale via her knowledge I'm fine with, but specifically mentioning genes I'm not.

--------

Overall impressions:
I like several things you are doing here. First off, I think you have a great angle going that they're 'walkers who are powerful both together and seemingly apart (if I'm reading correctly), but that are also so fiercely co-dependent on one another. Another great thing is how well you paint their colors without ever coming out and saying "this one is this color and so uses these spells" -- I like when people do that kind of light-subtlety. Something else I should note is that, unlike some of my previous issues with your creations, I don't have a very hard time remembering who is called what, probably as much because you spend time giving me a clear picture of what each looks like as it is easier names to remember (I mean, you even to so far as to give each a symbol to wield).

Now, I don't know whether those extra touches you put in (the cross-outs and lighter text) are supposed to be hidden completely or simply mysterious, but personally I don't think it quite works, at least not the way I think you want it to. If there's going to be some mystery about these four, I'd rather see a short story attached to the dossier itself, perhaps a series of found documents (or threads of fate if you'd like), or an inner monologue, or one random native's run-in with the Fates. These little mysteries do hint at a hidden story that I'd like to hear about, but it doesn't get me excited in the characters themselves, if you understand. I am very much in the same mind as Raven in that I find an introductory story, even a short introductory story, to be much more appealing than a dossier.

As it stands right now, I can't lodge any major criticism at it -- I would just prefer to see a companion story to properly introduce us to these characters. Of course, my apologies if that story exists and I'm unaware of it; I have a lot of catching up to do without even counting the new things being posted.

Thank you for reading.

I think the Simic have an understanding of genes, though I should probably re-inspect the original trilogy. At any rate, it's a tidbit I can remove if it goes against the suspension of disbelief way too much.

Yeah, in retrospect the camouflaged text wasn't a good idea. I wanted to subtly hint that one of them was in control without making it too obvious who it was, but I should just be forefront about it. I'll took off the white text, and added something else at the end.

A short story is on the way.

I can see the Simic knowing genetics, sure. The issue was partly where she got the knowledge, but if you can find an alternative to naming genes, then all the better.


Interesting. I had a hunch it might be her, but I couldn't be sure. I've actually read a story or two with hidden text in it that was done really well, in my opinion, though I think it would be really hard to work properly in a dossier. I'm relatively eager to see that short story, but I'll apologize in advance that I probably won't get around to it for a while with everything else I have yet to catch up on.

I took a note from the RTR Simic and changed it to "inner essences".

Interesting. I'm personally not overly fond of them, but that's not really a criticism against them, more just a personal reaction. With very few exceptions, I'm not personally drawn to high-powered, no-weakness characters, and when you throw at least two kinds of mind magic into the mix, it's just stuff I'm not comfortable with. Basically, I'm trying to think how I would put together any sort of meaningful interaction with, say, one of my characters without that character basically getting steamrolled.

Now, that being said, high power level is not necessarily a problem. We certainly have our share of them in the Archive, and I myself have Raiker Venn, who I admit fits a lot of the description I just gave, so I certainly would shoot anything down just for being strong. However, I do think it adds a level of concern to a character that we need to keep in mind.

I agree with Luna that these characters are easier to keep distinct than some of your other stuff, which is nice. I am not sold on "Flying-Sever" as a name, though. It just seems off to me. Likewise, I have an issue with her "jeans." At first, I thought "jeans" was way too modern for something like this, but looking into the word, apparently "jeans" dates back to the mid-15th century. However, it does apparently refer specifically to "twilled cotton cloth," which means that "leather jeans" is a contradiction in term. [EDIT]Actually, looking back, it appears you don't actually say "leather jeans." You talk about leather and tough material, and then say jeans. My mistake. Anyway, I would personally still avoid the word jeans, but it's not, apparently, a big issue.

There seemed to be a strange emphasis put on the Caladrian Aegis. Is this something I should know what it is?

The connection with Arbagoth makes sense, since the uniting aspect between the four of them in green mana, though I should note that Arbagoth is technically still "Private," although that will probably change soon. I am interested in why you/they picked those three places specifically, though.

The Fates are like Ashiok in being alien, disturbing horrors, and indeed very likely to be among the top-tiers in Post-Mending planeswalkers. They do have a major weakness, however, which is in their bounds: managing to significantly hurt one of them will at the very least slow the others considerably. Also, they need to planeswalk all together, meaning that thankfully the Multiverse wouldn't run the risk of having them anywhere more than a single plane at once.

I used "jeans" admitely a bit loosely. I was thinking about trousers that hung more to the shape of the legs.

The Caladrian Aegis is important. The story I'm brewing is partly about it.

Shoot, forgot to verify if I could use Arbagoth or not. Two locations I picked are indeed important: Vhron specifically for its endurant, territorial history, while Tymocia is an experimental ground for their destiny weaving. Oakumbra is simply to hint at who's the boss among the Fates.

I forgot to mention/ask:
What do you mean by putting these characters as "Public domain"? I assume you mean our "Open ". The main difference between that and "Public " is that leaving works Open means you relinquish all control whereas with Public you can still come in and say "this isn't how the character would act, stop that".

Thanks, I forgot about that.